Losing My Religion,] A Call For Help
A Call For Help
Jeffrey Lang
Paperback (6X9) 512 Pages
Amana Publications USA

Dr. Jeffrey Lang , author of the two best sellers, Even Angels Ask and Struggling to Surrender presents in this book an engaging dialog with the queries of young American Muslims and converts. The author addresses the alienation from the Mosque of the great majority of America’s homegrown Muslims.

Although Americans is discussed in this book, a  similar scenario to applies to all Muslims living in the West. 

Crucial to the vitality of any religious community is its ability to attract and engage descendants and converts. By this measure, notwithstanding the proliferation of mosques and Islamic organizations, the Muslim community in America is not doing at all well." This rather sober assessment motivates Dr. Lang to address, in this book, the alienation from the Mosque of the great majority of America's homegrown Muslims.

In Losing My Religion: A Call For Help, the author comes to terms with many of the queries put to him by Americans of Muslim parentage and converts to Islam since the publication of his book Even Angels Ask in 1977. Lang asserts that to effectively respond to the general malaise of American-born Muslims, the Islamic establishment in America needs to be willing to listen to the doubts and complaints of the disaffected. This entails engaging in open discussions on issues with which many in the Muslim community will be uncomfortable, but Lang avers that such open dialogue will be of more benefit to young American Muslims struggling with their faiths than the covert and uniformed discussions that often take place or no discussion at all. For this reason, Lang feels it is important and beneficial "to be candid and objective and not evade controversy, for to inadequately state the case for or against a specific position, especially when it challenges convention, only serves to further alienate the sceptical." In addition to examining questions of theodicy, hadith authenticity, and moot practices within the American Muslim community, the author includes many testimonials and inquiries that make this book informative.

About the Author Dr. Jeffrey Lang  is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Kansas, one of the biggest universities in the United States. He was born in a Roman Catholic family in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The first 18 years of his life were spent in Catholic schools, which left him with many unanswered questions about God and the Christian religion, Lang said, as he narrated his story of Islam. “Like most kids back in the late 60s and early 70s, I started questioning all the values that we had at those times, political, social and religious,” Lang said. “I rebelled against all the institutions that society held sacred including the Catholic Church,”.

By the time he reached the age of 18, Lang had become a full-fledged atheist, however on beng given a Translation of the Meaning of the Qur'an By the time he reached the age of 18, Lang had become a full-fledged atheist
He read the Qur’an on his own, found his way to the student-run prayer hall at the university, and basically surrendered without much struggle. He was conquered by the Qur’an.  The first two chapters are an account of that encounter and it is a fascinating one.